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Arizona Just Broke the NCAA's Concussion Policy. Will it Matter?

TUCSON, AZ - SEPTEMBER 08: Quarterback Matt Scott #10 of the Arizona Wildcats celebrates with teammates following their 59-38 victory over the Oklahoma State Cowboys in the college football game at Arizona Stadium on September 8, 2012 in Tucson, Arizona. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Congratulations, University of Arizona. Your football team just scored a big win over USC–partly because your quarterback played through an almost-certain concussion.

To be fair, it was your biggest victory in two whole years. And the NCAA’s not going to penalize you, so why protect your player? It’s not like we’ve learned anything about football and head injuries.

Here was the key sequence of events: In the fourth quarter of Saturday’s game, Arizona QB Matt Scott was kicked in the head while sliding during a play. Scott immediately began vomiting on the sidelines, repeatedly, as the game went to commercial.

Scott was showing tell-tale signs of concussion, and the NCAA–which is being sued for failing to implement appropriate concussion screening, return-to-play guidelines, and other safety measures–is pretty clear on what coaches should do next: “Take [an athlete] out of play immediately and allow adequate time for evaluation by a health care professional experienced in evaluating for concussion.” As one NCAA factsheet reads,

1. Remove the student-athlete from play…Do not allow the student-athlete to just “shake it off.” Each individual athlete will respond to concussions differently. 2. Ensure that the student-athlete is evaluated right away by an appropriate health care professional. 3. Allow the student-athlete to return to play only with permission from a health care professional with experience in evaluating for concussion.

However, well-paid Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez and his staff did none of those things. Instead, Scott stayed in the game–and even threw a touchdown pass–before finally going to the sidelines, apparently vomiting again, and being evaluated by trainers for a head injury. Not surprisingly, once Scott was actually forced to undergo a concussion test, he was immediately removed from the game.

By keeping Scott on the field, Arizona had little to lose, other than the game; the NCAA’s concussion policy is toothless and links to some of their head-injury resources don’t even appear to be working on their website. (Try clicking on “Behind the Blue Disk: NCAA’s Approach to Concussions.”)

And despite everything we know about head injuries, the culture of complicity extends to those who cover the sport. I didn’t actually watch the game, but was told that the announcers were blasé about Scott playing through his big hit. The initial write-ups on ESPN and elsewhere didn’t mention the sequence of events; others even celebrated Scott’s toughness. “Arizona Wildcats upset USC Trojans behind Matt Scott’s heart,” wrote SB Nation’s Kevin Zimmerman.

(This isn’t an isolated incident. Just a few weeks ago, USC star receiver Robert Woods took a shot to the head in a game vs. Utah, stumbled around the field, and was administered a simple three-question concussion test before being allowed back on the field within minutes. As Utah Jazz announcer David Locke pointed out on Twitter, the two events show that “much of [the] concussion talk is lip service,” at least on the college level.)

The NCAA wants to give the impression that it cares about its student-athletes; “Health & Safety” comes before “Championships” on the organization’s homepage.

Except, of course, when it’s obvious that the NCAA–and one of its most prominent coaches–don’t care at all.

Update, 10/28, 1:40 p.m.: Over at Deadspin, Issac Rauch has video of Matt Scott’s concussion. It’s important to note that after the timeout shown in the video–where Scott goes to the sidelines, still vomiting– the coaches kept him in the game for several more plays.

Announcers are never afraid to second-guess a coach for calling a passing play instead of a run, or a run instead of a punt. It’s sad that Millen and Joe Tessitore couldn’t bring the same vigor to questioning a call that put a player’s health at risk.

Update, 10/30, 2:30 a.m.: At Monday’s press conference, Rodriguez offered additional detail — although mostly, it was lack of detail — about the sequence of events on Saturday. The coach refused to specify whether Scott had a concussion test, and if he’d passed it.

However, Rodriguez did explain that when Scott first came to the sidelines after being hit and vomiting, he asked the QB “Are you OK?,” with trainers looking on. That was the extent of the initial testing – and when Scott said yes, he stayed in the game.

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I never go out of my way to login and provide feedback; however I was jilted by your inclusion of AZ’s local blog to prove your proffered hypothesis that “much of [the] concussion talk is lip service”.

Kevin Zimmerman did not opine that Matt Scott’s refusal to leave the game due to concussive symptoms resulted in his [Kevin] praising the quarterback for “playing through his big hit”.

I concur that the headline, separated and digested along with the rather clinical play-by-play recreation of that series, can lead a reader to conclude that Kevin has implicitly endorsed such negligent play; but I would also argue that you are stretching for material that would substantiate your argument. Context can be accepted or rejected with equal, and surprising, indifference.

It is absolutely plausible that, even prior to the concussive impact, Matt Scott was playing with heart and leadership, providing that axial boost the team needed to overcome a 15-point deficit. In reading Kevin’s summary of the series, he presents the information in a markedly poignant way. He is a reporter, and he provides the facts. Matt Scott slid, and he suffered a concussive hit. There was even a subsequent sentence that provided opinionated perspective that appears to belie your accusation that Kevin is merely celebrating results over safety:

“He left the game with a late concussion, and it was likely four plays later than it should’ve been.”.

That excerpt was within the first third of the article. That, by definition and location, lends itself to providing a perspective that was, apparently, lost on your assimilation of said article to bolster your rhetoric.

I suggest you more-thoroughly digest your citations before you levy allegations of complicity in a matter as serious as player safety and concussion education. Your terse inclusion of Kevin’s article smacks of a sensational and reflexive reaction to a position that you are, rightfully, adamant about.

I wasn’t trying to pick on Kevin when so many other observers, like whoever wrote ESPN’s first game recap, chose to completely overlook that Scott was kept in the game against NCAA policy. And Kevin should be applauded for responding to these comments by filing a follow-up story, “Matt Scott concussion: Quarterback will be evaluated, situation was mishandled,” to clarify that RichRod made the wrong decision.

But it’s absolutely fair to observe that Kevin’s first article was a glowing review of Scott’s toughness, with little mention of his head injury; if we’re being honest, I really didn’t like that Kevin started his story by saying “head puns might be the only accurate way to describe Matt Scott’s day.” We’ve come too far and learned too much about head injuries in football to joke about or overlook them.

Finally someone else has posted what was so obvious watching the telecast.

Nothing changes for the positive at Arizona. Anyone that knows anything about physiology and concussions, knows that besides disorientation and memory loss, vomiting is a sure sign of head trauma. Yet Arizona in a move that would make Lute Olson proud, kept Scott in the game and only tested and evaluated him for a concussion after he came off the field of play after leading a touchdown drive to insure the victory against USC. Scott missed the subsequent series of downs.

Truly a pathetic display by the Arizona coaching and medical staff. There should be serious repercussions.

Also, an epic fail by Matt Millen and the play by play analyst on Fox for failing to question the lack of wisdom in allowing Scott to continue to play and not having him evaluated immediately after the hit.

How things like this are allowed to take place given what we know about head trauma is disgusting.

This clearly falls on the head trainer and medical staff at Arizona and that’s all. Blowing up Matt Millen et al as a game day commentator is simply not acceptable. Its not his job to call out the University of Arizona given his role for the game broadcast. Nor is it the coaches job. Rich Rodriguez is not a medical doctor, I don’t believe, so he should do what Mike Riley at Oregon State does – keep medical opinions as a trump card to coaching opinions. The U of A medical staff should make the call and overrule the Coach. End of story. We need to be careful to assign criticism to the correct roles.

I think your insinuating that Matt Scott suffered a concussion, the team doctors and staff have not come out to say this is indeed the case. If you watched the post game interview on ESPN (it’s online) he doesn’t appear to show concussion symptoms. It was also very very hot at that game, I know, I was in attendance. Vomiting is also a symptom of heat exhaustion and physical exhaustion.

“RT @mscottqb10 Man all those people thinking I threw up because I got hit when I was really just tired haha”

Let’s hold our judgement until the doctors have their collective say. If you want to criticize Matt Millen do it for him calling the team from Tucson “Arizona State”. That’s like calling them the USC Bruins.

If you want to go after concussions getting lip service, research and report on youth football and the lack of required certified training for all players’ parents, coaches, and game officials. The same coaches who are fighting over a bad call and have felonies but are still allowed to coach youth football.

“RT @mscottqb10 Man all those people thinking I threw up because I got hit when I was really just tired haha”

Let’s hold our judgement until the doctors have their collective say. If you want to criticize Matt Millen, do it for him calling the team from Tucson “Arizona State”. That’s like calling them the USC Bruins.

If you want to go after concussions getting lip service, research and report on youth football and the lack of required certified training for all players’ parents, coaches, and game officials. The same coaches who are fighting over a bad call and have felonies but are still allowed to coach youth football.

* A player took a devastating hit to the head, and immediately began vomiting, repeatedly. Regardless of what he said to his teammates in the moment or tweets the next day, that combination of events is supposed to prompt *the coach* to immediately remove the player from the game for a required evaluation by the medical staff. * Despite the coach seeing his player get hit and vomit, and hearing from his trainers that they wanted to look at Scott’s health, he didn’t immediately pull the player for a medical eval. * Once the concussion tests were actually done after Scott threw the TD, the trainers were concerned to the point they didn’t allow the player back in the game. On-field interview with ESPN aside, Scott also wasn’t brought to the usual post-game media session after the biggest win of his life. Given the game’s importance and Scott’s prominence, please explain those decisions.

The head-injury policy is in place to protect players from their own 20-year old feelings of invincibility. It wasn’t followed.

Unless he didn’t have a head injury. You see, in football you wear this big old thing called a “helmet.” So it’s possible to get hit in the head and be okay. What you call a devastating hit, despite not seeing the game, was not necessarily devastating.

And it turns out that he doesn’t have a concussion, nor a head injury. He was fatigued (in a game where Marqise Lee had to have an IV at halftime). Again, some real journalistic investigation may be needed in the future.

In the end it’s pretty simple:

1) A player took a hit to the head and began vomiting (not immediately. In fact, nobody on TV actually saw him vomit because the cameras were elsewhere).

2) Arizona waited until the play clock ran down and then called a timeout to give Scott the maximum amount of time to see if he’s okay before playing him.

3) Matt Millen & crew, head trauma doctors in their spare time, immediately diagnosed him with a concussion while Arizona’s MEDICAL STAFF cleared him of a concussion.

4) Some journalist who didn’t watch the game, let’s call him Fan Fiamond, wrote an article about it based on nothing other than the diagnosis of a TV crew.

5) Matt Scott was cleared yet again of having a concussion, and went out that night to celebrate, which Fan also failed to uncover despite his unbelievable investigative journalism (after all, he can make a medical diagnosis from his couch without having seen what happened).

6) The head-injury policy is in place to protect players. It is not in place to protect those who don’t need protection from head injuries, such as those who have dehydration/exhaustion symptoms. But hey, don’t feel too bad, I’m sure you know more than Matt Scott and Arizona’s medical staff about Matt Scott’s symptoms and diagnosis because you can watch the replay diagnosis of Matt Millen who was way up in the booth at the time.